6 thoughts on “2016 BBC Audio Drama Awards”

Mike, a correction: On a personal computer & web browser platform, the BBC’s radio shows are generally globally available, for 30 days after original air date. So recent audio dramas are available to all, I expect. (I just tested a random audio drama, and it worked fine.)

BBC TV shows are restricted to the UK. The mobile app version of the iPlayer restricts playback of both radio & TV to the UK.

How I know this: I have been listening to the BBC’s folk, world and classical music programming in some depth since 2002. There used to be a fair number of fans who liked the British Isles & Celtic folk stuff, and those fans are urged to browse the BBC’s folk radio programmes on Radio 2 and Radio Scotland, for starters.

Ken Josenhans: You may have skipped past that it’s specifically “The Master and Margarita” which isn’t available at this time. Its original airdate was last March, and that 30-day window you explained was open then.

Cool! I am a huge fan of BBC radio/audio drama. Until a year or two ago, there was a US distrubtion e-store for BBC radio plays, called something like AudioGo. The prices were good and there were often discounts or sales, and I wound up purchasing over a hundred audio dramas… until the store shut down. (sigh) You can get some BBC radio drama now on iTunes, but the prices are significantly higher and the selection thinner.

Ken, I know there are some live feeds of BBC Radio available (I think TuneInRadio has one), but my problem has been finding time to listen to particular programs at their particular broadcast times.

If there’s a good DVR-equivalent app for radio, to automatically record online radio programs for later listening, I’d love a recommendation.

Are the music programs you listen to exempted from the 30-day limit that applies to most of the online drama? (There are a few dramas, like BBC’s World War I serial HOME FRONT, that have full availability for every episode.)

But as far as the BBC iPlayer goes, every time I’ve attempted to use it for anything outside the 30 days or available as a podcast (where, at least for Drama of the Week, there’s a 7-day limit), I’m told I’m outside the region available for listening. If there’s a Magic Button to get around this, or there’s something obvious smacking me in my clueless face, I’d like to know about it.

Bruce, I should try to send this in e-mail since a few days have passed.

The 30-day limit on BBC content applies to most music shows. The exceptions seem to be things where the BBC completely controls the intellectual property, and which are regarded as of enduring importance.

Within that 30 day replay period, from a “traditional” PC and web browser with Flash, one can replay almost any music or drama program on demand, on your schedule, which (to my mind) mostly eliminates the need for a DVR-like appliance.

The BBC does not allow podcasts to be downloaded to the colonies. :-/

The BBC does not allow the mobile-app versions of the BBC iPlayer to function in the colonies, even for content which is freely streamable to traditional computers. 🙁

My standard solution for recording streaming audio in a Windows environment has been a package called Total Recorder. Total Recorder has some DVR-like timing functionality, but I have never messed with it.